West of Nowhere (7 page)

Joy managed a thin smile for the benefit of the video, which was all that kept her from erupting in anger. Syd’s sole reason for telling Madison to keep their visits secret was because she was a lesbian, and it was a clear breach of their agreement to stay positive when they talked about one another.

“You’re a smart girl. I bet you can figure out how to write about the fun stuff.”

Footsteps outside the camper door announced Amber’s return from the laundry room.

“Okay, sweetie. I’ve got to go and so do you. It might be late tomorrow when I get to camp, so what if I wait to call when I get home? Is that okay?”

“Don’t forget.”

“Not a chance. Love you.”

She had barely disconnected the call when Amber came in with the laundry basket.

“I…uh, I ran into sort of a problem with some of our stuff. I think it might have been that red tank top I had on yesterday. I forgot it had never been washed before.”

Joy looked dismally upon a small pile of pink-tinted underwear. She reached into the basket—hoping against hope—and withdrew her beloved yellow T-shirt from the USS
Theodore Roosevelt
, now streaked with red. Not that the color mattered…since it was now two sizes too small.

“Looks like you washed everything together…in hot water.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think there was enough for two loads, and I wanted to be sure it all got clean.”

“Looks like it did,” she said quietly. Her pink bras ought to still fit, since they were polyester, but the cotton panties were a lost cause.

“I’m really sorry. Maybe it’ll wash out next time.”

“Hmmm.” Joy hoped the really small people who frequented Goodwill liked pink.

* * *

“Are you as cold as I am, Skippy boy?” Amber drew her knees to her chest on the bench of the picnic table and rubbed her bare legs briskly. The guy at the RV park store who sold her a pack of cigarettes said the temperature in Cheyenne dropped at night because the altitude was almost six thousand feet. There was a hoodie in her suitcase, but she didn’t want to go inside until it was time for bed. Staying out of Joy’s way seemed like a good idea on account of the laundry mishap.

This wasn’t the brand of silent treatment she was used to, where Corey would bang drawers and turn up the volume on the TV every time she tried to talk to him. Joy was talking to her but her voice was glum. Understandably, she was disappointed over having her favorite shirt ruined by carelessness. Amber had even offered to buy her another, but apparently they were available only in the ship’s store.

Perhaps all would be forgiven if she and Skippy froze to death.

Joy suddenly opened the door of the camper and called out, “Hey, we probably ought to turn in. Tomorrow’s another long day.”

She hustled inside to find her bed already set up, and with an extra blanket. “Thanks for doing this. I would have come sooner if…I figured you were still kind of mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Joy said. “Just kind of bummed about the shirt because it was special. But I shot off an email to a buddy of mine who’s still on the ship and she’s going to send me a couple of new ones. It’ll be okay.”

“Aw, that’s great. I’ll pay for both of them. I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Joy was already dressed for bed and wasted no time climbing up into her loft, where she rolled onto her side and pulled the covers to her chin. “But I should warn you…if you turn my pop’s skivvies pink, he might decide not to wear any, and that’ll be bad news for everyone at breakfast.”

It took a moment for Joy’s words to register, and then Amber got a vision of an old naked guy in a wheelchair. “Ewww.”

It was only when Joy chuckled that Amber finally let go of the tension that had strained their interactions all evening. Walking on eggshells wasn’t usually her style, but she didn’t like her chances in a head-on conflict with Joy. Someone so regimented wasn’t going to give an inch anyway, and it wasn’t worth the risk of ticking her off. Besides, she liked Joy. More than that, she respected any woman who took care of herself the way she did and called her own shots.

Amber turned on the tiny reading lamp over her bed and turned off the overhead light, casting the rest of the small space into darkness. As she bent to retrieve her nightshirt from the drawer below the seat, she wondered if Joy might be watching her from the shadows. Unlikely for someone so honorable. Still…it was kind of exciting to think so, and Amber took her time getting dressed, purposely stretching her nude body as she dropped the nightshirt over her form.

It could be fun to have sex with someone like Joy, she thought, smiling to herself as she spread the blanket over her feet and settled Skippy into the crook of her arm. Thanks to Molly and Rachelle, she’d had lots of practice satisfying women—enough that she could show Joy a thing or two.

* * *

Joy squeezed her eyes tightly shut, but not before getting an eyeful of Amber as she stripped to nothing and readied for bed.

She needed a girlfriend—tonight if at all possible—and anyone but Amber. For most of her tenure in the navy she’d been involved with Syd, and that had worked like an off-switch when it came to sexual interest in other women. The closest she’d come to dating someone since returning to California was Danielle Hatcher, her sometimes fling whenever she got depressed about not having female company. Though Joy found Dani interesting and attractive, they weren’t well suited for a serious relationship since Dani was set in her ways—ways that didn’t include being around kids like Madison or cranky old guys in wheelchairs. A social worker schooled at the University of California at Berkeley, she was a proud feminist who regularly organized women for one political cause or another, and she seemed to know every lesbian in the East Bay.

As soon as Joy got back home and got Amber settled in with her household duties, she’d call Dani for dinner. Or Jeannie, or Cassie or whoever that girl was she met at Dani’s potluck where they all had to donate to the women’s center.

Anyone but Amber.

There were dozens of reasons to steer clear of her passenger, not the least of which was the sleaze factor. Amber was desperate, and probably willing to do almost anything just to get by, including bartering sex. Only a creep would take advantage of a situation like that, and the fact that Amber gave it so freely meant she didn’t value intimacy in the same way Joy did.

Then there was the matter of Amber’s youth. Though she was twenty-four—only five years younger than Joy—she was hardly a mature adult. From her self-absorbed and impulsive behavior, it was almost as if she’d been raised by teenagers in a home where no one was left in charge. By contrast, Joy had been as responsible as any adult at sixteen, even before the navy got hold of her. She wasn’t interested in becoming a parent to someone who was old enough to take care of herself and had given away a child of her own.

And if all that wasn’t enough, there was the fact that Amber, though she’d hinted at the possibility of being a lesbian herself, was likely just an opportunist, seeking shelter wherever she found it. In other words, she was Syd all over again.

Joy shuddered and drew the sheet up over her head, wishing her eyes had a backspace button. If she could just survive one more night of sharing close quarters, at least she’d get her privacy back…and with it, a chance to release her sexual frustrations.

“I’m thinking of a person,” Amber said.

Joy groaned. “Not again. I don’t know any of those country music people. Tug This, Yank That.”

“Who said it was a country music person?”

“Is it?”

Amber smirked. “Yes.”

Joy beeped the horn twice. “Welcome to Utah.”

The Rocky Mountains had faded behind them, giving way to a rolling brown landscape, a featureless mix of dirt, rock and dry grass. Too much like Limon for Amber’s taste.

“I just can’t imagine what kind of people live in a place like this,” she said, answering her own query with the realization that there wasn’t a dwelling in sight. “By the way, I haven’t thanked you today for not leaving me at the Gateway Lodge. I don’t think I ever felt so hopeless in my whole life.”

“Yeah, I sort of figured that when you wouldn’t get out of the truck.”

“You think they allow smoking in Utah? I could do with a cigarette, and Skippy could probably do with a bush…if they had any.”

Joy flipped on her blinker and exited at the Welcome Center. “Pop’s going to start harassing you the minute he gets his first whiff of cigarette smoke on your clothes. Sure you wouldn’t rather be smoke-free when you get there? You said you had to quit anyway.”

“I’ve been harassed by the best of them. I figure I can wait until he rags on me, and then he’ll get to take credit for it when I quit.” She lit a cigarette the second she hopped out of the truck. “Besides, I still have cigarettes. A smoker can’t quit until they’re all gone.”

“I can fix that,” Joy said, suddenly snatching the pack from her hand.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I might.”

Skippy growled menacingly at Joy.

“Sic her, boy.”

Joy handed them back. “Here, keep your stinky old cancer sticks. And call off your attack dog.” She took the leash and led Skippy to the pet walk area.

“Everybody has vices,” Amber called loudly before shuffling to catch up.

“Not me. I like a cold beer every now and then, but that’s about it.”

“I bet your ex-girlfriend could come up with a better list than that.” Amber had spent much of the morning wondering what sort of girlfriend Joy had been. “Did you starch her underwear? Kick her tires every time she went somewhere?”

“Very funny. She was navy too so I didn’t have to deal with her sloppy habits. You may not know this—of course you don’t—but responsible people clean up after themselves.”

“God, I bet a crumb never hit the floor in your house.”

Amber enjoyed the effect of her teasing on Joy, who played along as if she were indulging a naughty child. It was tempting to terrorize her with more trashy stories about her sexual adventures just for the shock value, but it bothered her a little to think Joy might not have been exaggerating her disgust over the idea that she’d freely slept with both Corey and Rachelle. If she had it to do over again, she’d have kept the details to herself, but thinking before speaking had never been one of her strong suits. She couldn’t count the times her mouth had gotten her in trouble.

* * *

Joy leaned against the hood of her truck and smiled at the look of childlike amazement on Amber’s face. The Great Salt Lake, with its white streaks, sandbars and distant peaks, stretched out for miles before them.

“Man, I wish my phone worked. I’d take a picture of this.”

“Mine does,” Joy answered, snapping a shot of the lake with Amber in the foreground.

Amber took one last look over her shoulder and climbed back into the truck. “Thanks. Save it for me, will you? Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to get phone service again and you can send that to me.”

“With you taking care of Pop, I definitely want you to have a phone. That’s one of the details we have to work out.”

Joy had spent an hour the night before researching guidelines for live-in health care workers, which she’d found to be a lot more complicated than she’d first thought. Now that she’d offered the job to Amber, it seemed silly to bother with a background check, something most of the websites advised. But there was still the matter of filling out all the appropriate tax forms and negotiating an appropriate salary and work schedule.

“I talked with Pop again last night. He’s ready to bust out of rehab, so we want to make sure everything’s set for him to come home day after tomorrow.”

“Whatever you need, just tell me.”

Amber’s eyes glazed over as Joy went through the ins and outs of which services her father needed and who paid for what. The bottom line was in-home assistance wasn’t covered, so they’d have to pay out of pocket.

“What would you say to room and board, and five hundred bucks a week for the next three months? We’d have to hold back some for taxes, but you wouldn’t have any expenses of your own…especially since you’re going to quit smoking.”

Her offer was met with silence, not altogether surprising, since the salary was on the low end of what was recommended. Joy had thought that reasonable since her father didn’t require a lot of personal care, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“What do you think?”

Amber managed to shake her head and nod at the same time, a gesture that Joy took to mean she’d probably have to start negotiating.

“It’s good…in fact, it’s more than I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve got some friends that do this home health care kind of stuff and they don’t make that much, so…great.”

No doubt Amber’s friends worked hourly jobs with agencies that provided benefits and bonding, along with administrative support. Joy hoped this twelve-week gig would help Amber on a path to stable employment. All that depended, of course, on her doing a good job.

“You know, there are a lot of jobs out there for people who do this kind of work. Most of the people I talked to at the agencies said all their techs were certified, so maybe you could look into getting a certificate. If they have classes at night or on the weekends, you can sign up right away. I can sit with Pop while you’re gone.”

“That would be cool, and then—” She huffed and shook her head. “Except how would I get there? I don’t have a car, and you don’t trust me to drive this one, even with you sitting beside me.”

“That’s because you’ve never driven anything this heavy. It’s dangerous if you don’t know how to handle it. But you’d be able to drive Pop’s car.”

“Your father has a car?”

“I told you. He can do practically everything but walk. That’s why he’s going crazy at the rehab center, because he’s used to taking care of himself.”

“Yeah, well he better get used to being taken care of at home. I’m going to cook. I’ll clean. I’ll do all his laundry…on second thought, maybe he ought to handle the laundry.”

It was good to hear Amber laugh, and especially to hear the eagerness in her voice when she talked about going to work. In the long run, this would probably turn out to be not only the best-paying job she’d ever had, but also the easiest. And if it started her down the road toward gainful long-term employment, so much the better. Getting dumped at a truck stop in Louisville, Kentucky, might end up being the luckiest break she ever had.